


La Picciona

by AntipodeanPixie



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Artistic License: Assassin's Creed, Artistic License: History, Gen, In Universe AU, This is background Assassins number 27 and 35, We have like 12 named Assassins or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 18:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11719575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntipodeanPixie/pseuds/AntipodeanPixie
Summary: The first time they met, it was his great misfortune that she turned around the moment he entered her room.





	La Picciona

**Author's Note:**

> Please note, I am writing this for the fun of it, because I saw some trailers, and AC looked very cool. It's set sometime after Ezio buggers off to do Assassin Stuff, and has nothing to do with any canon plots whatsoever. 
> 
> Also please note: Almost the entirety of all the Italian in here is bastardized through Google Translate and a passing familiarity with French conjugations. Is a female pigeon actually 'la picciona'? I have no idea. If you do, let me know.

Alessandro took in a deep breath, redolent of salt and trash. The beauty of Venice, and why you didn’t swim even if you knew how. He shook out his arms a little, then took a hopping run. The wonders of modern architecture, he thought drily as he swung and hopped upwards, hands finding easy purchase, was the plethora of hand and foot holds for the city’s Assassins. Now a sheer marble face? That would be hard. This? He had barely noticed the climb when he stood on top of the small palazzo’s roof.

He passed a dove-cot, the occupants sound asleep at this hour, and neat beds of vegetation gleaming clear in the light of the nearly full moon. Somebody in the house was a keen gardener. Looking down into the courtyard, it was dark and silent. No sign of movement, no lanterns lit though he knew a night watchman was at the front gate. No matter. He hopped down, a tumbling controlled freefall that had him landing with no more than a quiet puff of air on smooth marble tile.

Now that he was inside the interior courtyard, there were no locked doors to hold him and he had been given the architect’s plan of the house as well as the room he was here to search. It would be easy, a cakewalk for his rank. Soft cat’s feet padded up the halls. He’d ignore the servant’s stair, far more likely to be used at this hour, and took the main way. It wouldn’t take long.

And then some idiot stumbled out of a room right into him. Instinct took over and he had the man in a hold, hand holding his jaw shut and silent as he struck him hard on the temple. “Don’t be too long,” whispered a giggling woman’s voice from the door behind him that had swung closed as the man exited. _Shit._ He dragged the now unconscious but still living man to the side, propping him on a decorative seat as if he’d just fallen asleep there, and moved swiftly. He wouldn’t have long now, before this man’s companion came looking for him. He hoped fervently that the man usually took forever to piss, or whatever he’d left the room for. Alessandro was glad he was skilled at running quietly and that there were rugs on the floor to muffle his footfalls when he reached the correct door.

Opening it, he slid in and shut the door with a quiet click, only to hear a small gasp just as a scream went up downstairs. For a moment, they both froze there in shock, staring at each other. She had a book in hand, reading by the light of the full moon, still in kirtle and cioppa. One hand had been toying with a lock that had fallen free of her snood, and she stared him with large dark eyes. He wasn't entirely sure what he ought to do. He'd been told to find the artefact in this room and do so silently. But instead, he was standing in a woman's bedchamber while the whole house was up in arms because some idiot with his hose unlaced had wandered into him at the wrong time. His hand twitched a little.

-Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent, - echoed in his head and he relaxed it.

“Assassin,” she breathed. He was across the room in a flash, hand clasped across her mouth even as he grabbed for her arms. Shushing her, he backed into the far corner of her room, eyes darting as his mind ran. He had to do something. He couldn't strike her. He had no idea who this woman was, or why her room was the important one. Thankfully she kept no bedfellow, but that didn't change that he now had his hands full with somebody who could make a racket and betray his presence. He had the philtre, but that had been intended to keep her asleep while he searched, not put her out. He decided to risk it, go for the vial in his belt that would daze her long enough for him to escape, and released her hands to grope for it. And then there was a swing of movement level with his eyes. He glanced up and saw a crystalline key glinting in the moonlight. Alessandro paused. The woman did not struggle.

Venna was so terribly aware of the heat of him, the warmth of his back down her spine. Her feet tripped on the edge of the rug, and she sagged back into him. It was terrifying, being pressed along his body, against his legs and chest, and she did her best not to think of it while she held up the key. She could feel the man still, a flutter of air over the top of her ear from his breath, the scent of leather in her nose from his gloves. His left hand rose slowly, ghosted along her arm to her fingers that looked so small and pale in the gloaming next to his. His fingers curled around it and she released the chain. Pointing with her left to the armoire on the other side of the room, there was a long pause. She realised her right hand was still clutched around his wrist.

“What is it?” he asked. An odd little shiver ran over her scalp at his voice. She tapped her left fingers against his glove and his hand slowly pulled away, as if ready at any moment to clasp her silent again. She slowly stepped away from him, though she couldn't say while she kept hold of his arm.

“A box. I don't know what the key is for,” _-a lie-_ “but I know that it's in there, and it's important. It's what you came for, isn't it?” His face was difficult to see in the gloom, a well-formed jaw, soft thin lips, a neat close beard. Not quite a boy, though she doubted he'd be older than her, his skin clear and unmarked. A flare of truth about his face. Dark hollows where his eyes were. The moonlight striping through the panes shaded everything below the bridge of Venna’s nose and left her eyes to shine, brows steady while her mouth trembled. His arm tugged just a little at her grasp, enough to remind her where her hand was. She let go as if burned and he stepped to the armoire, though he continued to watch her until he placed one hand against the wood.

“Check the bedrooms! They could be anywhere!” a voice called down the hallway, and the rattle of small arms echoed it. Alessandro turned to the container, hands suddenly flying as he opened the doors and looked for it, a box she said.

The woman! Drat it he'd let her go and she was already at the door... turning the key and turning to him with a determined jut of her chin as she dashed past him. His hands found the small box. It looked similar, the edges and workings familiar. A piece of Eden. He grasped it, tucked it into the knapsack at the small of his back and the key into his pocket. He would check it later. First, he had to leave, and the hallway was being searched, he could hear the doors banging open. The door shook as somebody pounded on it.

“Signorina Venna! Are you well?”

“Giacomo? What's happening?” she called as she threw open the window.

“There is an intruder in the house,” the man said through the door.

“A what? My god, no, I'm fine! My door is locked,” she cried back as she turned to the silent Assassin standing in her bedchamber. “Go,” she whispered, stepping back from the window and leaving him a clear line of escape. He didn't question it, hopping out the window only to pause at the ledge, one hand still on the side of the aperture.

“Why?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“You would only kill them,” she muttered. “I will not have more widows if I can avoid it.”

He pushed off the ledge and vanished into the darkness, even as she ran to the window to lean out for a moment, tracking where he went. He was inhumanly quick, down, across the canal, away. Gone in a flash, and she'd not believe it if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. She drew the window to and twitched the curtains shut. Then she realised that Giacomo was still talking to her through the door.

“Signorina? Do you want somebody with you?” came the careful query.

“I'm fine! I'm fine,” she repeated. “Is anyone hurt?”

“Anton, we have sent for the doctor but he is yet alive. I will leave two footmen at your door.” he told her, and she could hear them withdraw while somebody down the hall called for news. She sat on her bed in the dark.

An Assassin. One like those from her records, the notes she had accumulated, the hints and whispers. The hawks. _Real_. Here. In her _room_. Distantly she realised she was breathing far too fast and was liable to faint. She stood and moved to her window, pulling the curtains back for light without fumbling to light her candle. Standing before her vanity, she stared at her reflection in the glass. Deep breaths.

When faced with a startling or shocking event, normalcy was important for the patient to regain equilibrium, she quoted to herself. First. Her cioppa. The heavily embroidered overcoat was slid off and hung in her armoire, next to the shelf the box had rested on. _Her mother’s box, stolen_. Then her kirtle. She unlaced the sides of the fine silken dress, thicker fabric. That was hung next to the cioppa. Now in just her shift, she sat at the stool at her vanity. Hands that now only trembled faintly reached up to her hair, unpinning her hair net and letting her hair fall in a tumble down her back. It was laid aside in a jewel box, joined by her earrings and her ring. Her necklace remained in place, a devotional medal of her late mother's. By the time she was combing out her hair, her hands had steadied and she removed her footwear and climbed into bed, mind racing.

How long did she have? She had bought time with the box, but she would need to figure out what now. The Assassins might not know she had it, or know that she had any idea what it was. Her mother had left it specifically to her, and her Great Uncle had allowed it. As long as she remained an innocent, she should be safe. It had taken a lot of sifting through conjecture, but she had finally accumulated what she thought to be most of their creed. There would be no use in killing her, if there was nothing to gain by her death.

As she lay, staring at the canopy of her bed, she made her decision with her mother's medal heavy on her breast. She would lie. _I never opened the box. Never knew its contents. Never knew what was meant to be there._

* * *

 

Alessandro returned to the Bureau feeling deeply unsettled.

“My brother, you return! Successful?” asked Corso, dropping off the wall. A year or two ahead of him in his studies, the other was a mercenary to his disciple. A little taller, his hands broader, Corso had a woman's mouth under an aquiline nose, sharp blue eyes and fine sandy hair. He clapped an arm around Alessandro, ducking to glance at his friend’s swarthy face. His smile slipped at Alessandro's expression. “What happened?” he asked, steering him to the office.

“I don't know. But I will tell you as I report.” he told his friend. He gave his report, watched by two faces, one puzzled and the other grave.

He had entered the residence, owned though not much lived in by one Carossini family. That had not been difficult. Unfortunately, an unlucky guard leaving his housemaid lover to relieve himself had walked right into him. An amateur mistake to not hear him coming. From there, things had gone downhill. When he'd located the right room and gained entry, everything had fallen apart. The woman he'd been told slept in that room was alone, but she was also awake in the window seat, book open in her lap. There'd be no keeping her asleep with the substance he'd be given so that he could search her room thoroughly. He'd tried to subdue her without harm, when she had presented the key unprompted. She seemed to know exactly what he was and what he was there for. Then, she had covered and delayed for him, apparently through concern for the lives of the men outside her door. No screaming, no dramatics. Only a straightforward path laid for him to leave with what he came for. And now he had this box and a deep unsettling sense of missing something.

Michaelo, Corso's father and their superior, took the box, fitting the key into the lock and opening it. The contents were underwhelming. A small token, the size of his thumbnail, that looked to be made of lead. The elder turned it over, muttered over it.

“It looks right according to descriptions from Altair’s codex. But something about it feels off.”

“What is it?” Corso asked.

“It should be a Piece of Eden. We are uncertain as to its purpose. That was not recorded.” Michaelo held it up and frowned at it. “This isn’t what we were looking for.”

Alessandro made a sound of frustration and rolled his shoulders.

“Peace, boy. You did well with what you had. The box is genuine, but this is fake. Nothing but lead, and worthless.”

“Then the question is when it was switched,” Corso said with a frown, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “If it was before or after it came into her possession. This woman may have never held the real thing, and been given the box with that in it.”

“Possible.” Michaelo said, leaning back in his chair and eyeing it thoughtfully. “But for now, it leaves your mission changed and incomplete, Alessandro.”

Alessandro had the distinct feeling he was missing something.

* * *

 

Three days later, he watched the woman from a distance, leaned against a chimney. The rooftop garden was hers and to all appearances so was the dove-cot. It seemed she lived most of her life upstairs and was curiously devoid of companions. There was a dumpy little woman that accompanied her when she went out, gloved and masked as was proper. But otherwise she was left to her own devices, considered safe on the roof of the building. As well she might be from most threats to young ladies. Few paramours could get up there; only an Assassin could scale those walls or leap the gaps between houses and she certainly couldn’t leap down. She kept pigeons, curiously tame ones that rode her shoulders like parrots and took feed from her palms, that she coddled like children.

She also read a lot, books that he couldn't see well from here but looked too densely printed to be the usual fare given to noblewomen. He'd been tasked to watch her, keep an eye on any contact the household had with Templars, or interesting activity, and had learned her name.

Venna di Maddalena de Carissino.

A romantic name rather than a common one, a matronymic, and the name of a powerful family. A ward of Carlotto de Carissino after the death of her mother who had been his favourite niece, father only rumoured at. That would explain why she lived in a half empty small palazzo with a paltry staff and little society company, yet with such great indulgence as to have a different book every time he saw her and no oversight. While she had a plethora of cousins and other, closer blood relations her great uncle was the only one he’d seen visit.

Somehow, it seemed a terribly lonely existence.

The days stretched, morphed into weeks. A month or three. He was starting to get antsy, especially when Corso was getting interesting jobs. Speak of the devil...

“Your job is terribly boring.” Corso informed him, slouching against the crenulation Alessandro was crouched on. “I brought you lunch, by the way.”

“Thank you. I'm practising my patience.” Alessandro said drily as he ate, shifting to sit with his legs dangling down the roof.

“Does all she do is read?” Corso asked, a hand stealing up to rest familiarly against his lower back. Alessandro shifted a little.

“She reads, she writes. I think she plays at alchemy and science? She has a large study that is full of all manner of small models, and bottles.”

“Che, she's not even nice to look at,” Corso scoffed. Something about that made Alessandro bristle.

“She's not exactly old, or ugly,” he protested.

“Oooh, has somebody got a crush?” Corso crooned. Two small spots of colour rose on Alessandro's cheeks and he resolutely didn't look at Corso as he shoved his head away.

“You know you're the only one for me, caro,” he simpered. “Besides, it's not her fault she's plain.”


End file.
